[justin66]

That sounds really good, I don't think I ever read Tristan and Iseult.

I'd have slotted Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in with Beowulf in the "medieval" part of the literary canon but I could be off-base there. I remember reading Beowulf in high school but not the other. That might be a function of which one I found more interesting at the time, I'm not sure.

[thaumasiotes]

I agree that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is "medieval". I meant to say that the English class covering it was not focused on a historical period, covering literature that was much more modern in the same year.

Beowulf is from around the 8th century; I guess that's technically "medieval" but I think of it as belonging to some nameless period that's older than "medieval". There's a huge difference between Old English of the 8th century and Middle English of the 14th.

In terms of story quality, Sutcliffe's Tristan and Iseult was in fact quite good. And it gave me a bit more appreciation for this: https://arthurkingoftimeandspace.com/1020.htm .

[justin66]

I think the "medieval" terminology is a little dated anyhow. I guess Harold Bloom's categorizations and listings and so on are a lot more authoritative now (they sure pop on a google search) and it doesn't look like he uses the term. I have no real opinion on how much any of that matters.

Memory is unreliable but I recall my high school class using a pretty good textbook that included Beowulf with both old English and modern translations, but also the chapter of The Hobbit where Bard shoots the dragon, which stylistically invited some interesting comparisons. It was a pretty good lesson for a high school kid who was also a fan of Tolkien, back before that was something you could be without reading any books.